{"id":113,"date":"2014-05-09T12:53:57","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T16:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/?p=113"},"modified":"2014-05-09T12:54:47","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T16:54:47","slug":"donkey-story-regarding-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/?p=113","title":{"rendered":"Donkey Story Regarding Happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a story told that a man\u2019s donkey wandered off in the middle of the night; and, therefore, he had to carry his knapsack down the road on his own shoulder.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>He didn\u2019t have his donkey to ride in the middle of the day.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Then he met a stranger in the heat, and he told him how miserable everything was.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>He was so unhappy because he lost the donkey and now he was having to walk and carry his knapsack on his back.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>So the stranger that he was telling all this story to invited him to come sit under the shade with him.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The stranger said just leave your knapsack there – – we\u2019ll sit over here under the shade and refresh ourselves.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>I have some water with me in a canteen.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

So the stranger gave him a drink and the guy was carrying on, still just as miserable as he could be.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Suddenly, the stranger got up, grabbed the knapsack and ran off with it.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The guy, now, was in one terrible state.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the stranger slipped into the bushes and waited a little bit until he saw the guy coming.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Then he laid the knapsack out in the road; and when the guy found it there, he was very happy.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

So the stranger came out and said, \u201cNow you were unhappy because you didn\u2019t have a donkey.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cThen you lost your knapsack, and now you\u2019re happy because you found your knapsack, and you\u2019re in the same boat you were in when the donkey wandered off, but now you\u2019re happy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So you see, it\u2019s really very simple to decide that we will have a different viewpoint, but if I choose to be a victim, I am obviously what the world calls unhappy, right?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Now if I\u2019m doing something, I don\u2019t think about whether I\u2019m happy or not., but I have a certain amount of satisfaction in doing or being on the way to doing.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m now in motive, and I quit thinking about being happy.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

So we tell people if you are trying to be happy, we\u2019ll guarantee you\u2019ll be miserable.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t know whether you\u2019ll ever be happy or not, but if you forget all about trying to be happy, you wouldn\u2019t trade places with anybody in the world.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Happiness is that proverbial thing\u2014the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that you can\u2019t find.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s the bluebird saying that \u201cyou can have your wishes if you can sprinkle salt on the bluebird\u2019s tail.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>So in other words, it\u2019s an illusion.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s a joke played on mankind, and most of us have bought it.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019re trying to be happy, and who knows what it means – – and why bother with it anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n

If there is such a thing, I\u2019m sure it\u2019s a byproduct of not giving a \u2018durn\u2019 about being happy\u2014if there is even such a thing.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Who wants it anyway, it may be that all you would do is sit under a shade tree and vegetate.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a story told that a man\u2019s donkey wandered off in the middle of the night; and, therefore, he had to carry his knapsack down the road on his own shoulder.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t have his donkey to ride in the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115,"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}